Proposal would boost Kent mayor’s annual salary to $240,000

Published 1:40 pm Monday, February 9, 2026

Kent Mayor Dana Ralph could see her annual salary increase this year to $240,000, a 9.2% jump from 2025 when she made $219,720.

The city’s three-member Independent Salary Commission proposed the pay increase at its Feb. 5 meeting, according to city documents. The commission will take a final vote during its 5 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 19 meeting in the Centennial Rooms, 400 W. Gowe St. Public comment in favor or against the pay jump will be taken at the meeting.

If the commission approves the mayor’s pay raise, it will be retroactive to Jan. 1, 2026.

The commission proposed to keep the pay for the City Council president and the other six council members at the same rate. The council president makes $42,888 annually while the other members make $37,296 per year. Those are part-time positions.

The council voted 5-2 in 2022 to form the Independent Salary Commission to look each year at increasing pay for the mayor and council members, with one of the goals to keep Kent’s pay as high or higher as six comparable cities.

A hike of $20,280 per year would put Ralph’s $240,000 annual pay second, behind the $251,616 paid to the Renton mayor but ahead of the $221,772 paid to the Everett mayor, according to city documents.

The annual pay to mayors of other comparable cities is Federal Way, $216,828; Auburn, $200,316; Marysville, $192,168; and Redmond, $173,916.

City staff compiled the salaries of other cities within King, Pierce and Snohomish counties which use a mayor-council form of government, the same as Kent. The selected cities have populations between 75,640 and 140,100. To ensure comparability to cities similar in size to the Kent, the city of Seattle with a population of 816,600 and cities with populations under 45,000 were excluded.

Kent has the largest population of the six cities at 140,100, according to city documents. The populations of the other comparable cities are Everett, 114,700; Renton, 109,700; Federal Way, 102,900; Redmond, 82,380; and Marysville, 75,640.

Despite no proposed pay hike, the Kent City Council remains the highest paid at $37,296 annually among comparable cities. The pay for council members in the other cities is: Everett, $34,727; Redmond, $28,236; Marysville, $24,492; Renton, $24,000; Auburn, $21,600; and Federal Way, $19,536.

The salary commission members are Julie Miller, Charlie Mitchell and William Cogswell. Miller has been on the commission since it began. The council appoints the members. The commission meets each year to look at salaries with the options to:

• Grant a general cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) to all positions

• Increase the salary of a particular position(s)

• Not grant any increases—keep all salaries at their current level

• Decrease the salary of a particular position(s)

• A combination of any of the above

Any change that results in an increase in a position’s salary will take effect on a date determined by the commission.

In 2025, the commission approved a 3.6% cost-of-living increase for the mayor and the seven council members. That raised the mayor’s salary to $219,720, which at the time was the highest of any comparable mayor. In 2024, the commission approved a salary increase of $9,132 for the mayor and kept the council at the same pay.

During the commission’s initial meeting in 2023, after formation in 2022, it hiked the mayor’s salary 18% to $198,000 from $168,141 per year, with a 2.5% cost-of-living increase on Jan. 1, 2024. It approved an annual pay increase of 110% to council members to $36,000, up from $17,172.

Prior to 2023, the council last had a salary commission in 2015 to review pay of the mayor and council. That commission approved in 2015 a 35% pay hike for the mayor, which boosted the annual salary to $138,000 per year from $102,192 with an annual 2.5% pay hike. When the council formed that commission, part of the agreement was it would disband if annual pay increases were included, so the council disbanded the group later in 2015.

Kent also had a salary commission under then-Mayor Jim White, who served from 1994 to 2005. White recommended in the early 2000s to disband the group and the council agreed because the pay raises became so controversial.